Sheet products are generally stacked and accommodated in a housing of the dispenser. The individual sheet products may be folded. Comfortable dispensing of the folded sheet products from the dispenser is enabled by interfolding consecutive sheet products. Thus, when a folded sheet product is pulled out through a dispensing opening of the dispenser, the immediate next (consecutive) folded sheet product is also subject to a pulling force making the immediate next folded sheet product partially protrude from the dispensing opening and being partially unfolded. Thus, this protruding part is easily accessible and can be gripped by a user.
One problem with dispensers of this kind is that they can be overloaded or overfilled with sheet products. This can result in a high pressure against the stack of sheet products increasing the friction between the individual sheet products of the stack and the leading sheet product to be dispensed through the dispensing opening and the dispenser.
In manual dispensers, in which a sheet product is dispensed by manually gripping and withdrawing a sheet product through the dispensing opening, such increased friction may make it difficult to remove the sheet product from the dispenser. In the worst case, the sheet product may tear during withdrawal. As regards interfolded stacks, the increased friction may also prevent the next folded sheet product from partially protruding from the dispensing opening as described above. Hence, it becomes difficult to withdraw the next sheet product. In either case, there is a certain risk that the user withdraws more sheet products from the dispenser than necessary.
Considering automatic dispensers, comprising a dispensing mechanism actuated by the user to automatically dispense a specific number of sheet products, the increased friction may impair the operation and reliability of the dispensing mechanism in that no sheet product or the wrong number of sheet products is dispensed. Also, in this case damaging, particularly ripping and tearing of the sheet products, cannot be excluded.
In view of the above, there is a need to prevent overfilling or overloading of such dispensers. One such mechanism is implemented in the manual dispenser disclosed in US 2002/0074340 A1.
Another mechanism is disclosed in EP 0 506 243 A1.